There is no way! The plane was dead stick and hit the ground at only a 10degree or so angle......if it was a Carden or some other wooden plane it prob would have only ripped the gear off, but because it was a comp-arf and the way they do the gear it tore out the gear plate and broke the fuse in half right there. The rudder tray and servos were completely intact and untouched in the back half of the fuse. The wires were not even tugged on as the reciever they were plugged into was again still attached to the same tray. I still have the wings, stabs/elevators, rudder (was sold to a friend but was perfect), damn near perfect.....the fuse was the only thing that was broken and that is simply the nature of a composite airplane. So to answer your question as to whether the crash had anything to do with that failure.........no freakin way! The back half of the plane was untouched. It landed in a "plowed field which was very soft in general. Oh yea...I also used an swb bellcrank on a carbon rudder tray (servos in line) to take any load off the rudder servos. I didn't want to but any undo loads on the servo splines if i didn't have to and I am sure that these servos were UNTOUCHED in the incident. If you want to use that as an excuse for the Motors and ICs burning up in the servo (Hitecs tech report..not mine) that is your choice. Go ahead and bury your head in the sand and pretend it's not valid. That is completely your choice. Oh yea, Hitec noted zero physical damage to the servos.

If you want to risk your $3000-$8000 plane to what many of us feel is substandard equipment because you trying to save a few bucks (not many when you consider the overall cost of these planes) it's your choice. That's what is so great about our hobby...we have so many choices. This thread really doesn't matter because the hardcore Hitec guys are gonna pretend that evey failure is the users fault in some way. Some will never have trouble and some will no doubt live to regret it.......not that they will fess up to it if (when) they do have a failure. If I had an 8611 fail I would post it. I doubt that will happen with the Hitec crowd. Hitec has develeped this reputation for a reason........lots of reported failures, not isolated incidents. Ask poor Jim McQueen who lost both his new 2.6 Extra (elevator hard over ...not a ganged situation) and his Dave Patrick Edge (rudder hard over...again single servo install) this season. Both 5945 servos. Nice huh? I bet Hitec sent him two new servos for his "sacrifice". Or would that be his "field testing"?

Ok, I'm done. I gave em a chance and they let me down so I am done with them. They had their chance and I ended up with $1300 worth of JR8611 for my big Yak. I don't care that the new "5995" is 300+ oz of torque because based on my experience and all the reports of failure (just do a search for "hitec failure" and you will be stunned at all the reports you find) I believe the failure rate to be higher than exceptable. It would take a long period (like a year or more) without hearing about further failures and an acknowledgement from Hitec before I could ever believe they have really upgraded whatever is necessary to make these servos reliable enough for me to gamble on them again no matter how cheap I could them. I guess it just comes down to pay now or......pay later with interest!

Leardriver